Report: Mountain West to make final decision on fall season later this week

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — After a rollercoaster of a year, the Rams might be playing this fall after all.

On Saturday’s pregame college football show on FOX, Bruce Feldman reported that athletic directors from around the Mountain West will have a meeting on Monday to finalize a final pitch for the board.  According to Feldman, the board is then expected to meet later in the week and come to an ultimate decision on whether the league will play football in 2020.

“They’re optimistic that they could start their season on October 24,” Feldman said.

Feldman’s report comes on the heels of Brett McMurphy’s reporting from earlier in the week. On Wednesday, McMurphy said that the MW is aggressively pursuing a way to play an eight-game schedule, culminating with a title game on December 19.

The format would give the league almost no flexibility if teams were unable to participate due to outbreaks or injury — which could definitely be problematic. Anyone that has followed the early stages of the 2020 college football season can see there have been quite a few bumps in the road.

But if things do go smoothly and teams make it through relatively clean, then the MW would be eligible to participate in New Years Six Bowls or potentially even the College Football Playoff if someone were to go on a historic run. Obviously, the latter is much less likely though — especially without a non-conference slate to help beef up the resume.

At this point in time, it’s far from a guarantee that the league will decide to participate. Securing affordable rapid-testing and getting the final stamp of approval from the various school presidents are not exactly simple hurdles to overcome. That said, it’s clear that the Big Ten deciding to play in the fall instead of the spring, forced just about everyone else to reevaluate their hands.

Will the Mountain West go all in like the Big Ten? Or will the league decide it’s simply too big of a gamble? Either way, get ready for an interesting week.